If you ask a small business owner why they didn’t close that sale, you’ll probably never hear they were outbid. What you will hear is something similar to: “Our champion loved our solution, but it died within the company.” Three months passed and nothing happened. In Forrester’s 2024 Buying Behavior Study they found that the average B2B sale has 13 people involved in the decision-making process with 89% of those involving multiple departments. Almost 9/10 sales fail at some point in time and buyers are typically dissatisfied with who they choose to work with. This is where Account-Based Marketing comes in.
What is Account Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing (or ABM) is a form of B2B marketing where instead of throwing everything you have at the market and hoping for the best, you identify your dream list of customers and begin targeting all the decision makers within that list. It’s similar to if each of those companies was their own market.
It started in the early 2000s when Bev Burgess of ITSMA coined the term. Many businesses that sold to larger enterprises were already doing this. They would identify their dream customers and go after them like VIPs. Gartner defines Account-Based Marketing as “a synchronized, continuing marketing and sales activity” to ensure your marketing and sales efforts align with the buyers journey. Gartner states that on average a B2B sale involves 6-10 people in the buying group and each researches 4-5 things before talking to a sales person.
It’s important to understand the 95:5 Rule. At any given time only 5% of your customers are ready to buy. The remaining 95% are not. When you run a Demand Generation campaign you are treating all of those customers the same. By utilizing Account-Based Marketing and intent data you can find the 5% that are ready to buy and nurture the rest until they are.
Who Should Use Account-Based Marketing?
Not every company will benefit from using Account-Based Marketing. Make sure your agency tells you this when they pitch you. If you are selling something complex that takes longer than 3 months to sell to you likely will want to implement ABM into your marketing strategy.
You can use these guidelines to help determine if ABM is right for you. Are you selling a product or service over $20k? Do you have a finite amount of customers you can sell to? Does it take you longer than 3 months to close a sale? If you answered yes to all of those you should look into Account Based Marketing.
Companies that sell B2B Tech/SaaS, finance, professional Services, manufacturing, and Healthcare all utilize ABM. According to McKinsey’s 2025 B2B Pulse Report, market Leaders are 4x more likely to personalize their message 1:1. 60% of companies consider themselves leaders reporting double-digit revenue growth in 2025, compared to only 21% of the lower performers.
How to Create Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy
First you need to align your sales and marketing team. You want to make sure that both teams have the same list of dream customers they are working towards. As stated by Kyle Jepson from HubSpot Academy, “you’re going to end up with an account-based mess” when your sales and marketing team are targeting different lists.
After that you want to create your ideal customer profile and develop a list of accounts that fit that profile. You can start with a large list and narrow it down to the hundreds that fit your criteria. Once you have that list you can utilize intent data to see which accounts are looking to buy, then segment your list into tiers. These tiers can be broken down into 1:1, small groups, and one size fits all.
Create content that targets these accounts and personas. Each persona within that account will need different messaging. Once you have that developed, you want to spread your message across various channels. This could include paid social, email, mail, events and more. You want to make sure that your sales team knows what your marketing is sending to the account and can follow up accordingly. It’s also important to track the ROI on your account based marketing. Only 52% of companies are able to measure ROI with their ABM strategies.
What to Expect From Account-Based Marketing
There are many reasons why companies love Account-Based Marketing. According to a study by the ABM Leadership Alliance & ITSMA in 2020, 76% of marketers reported higher ROI from ABM than any other strategy. 55% were able to increase revenue by utilizing ABM. HubSpot did a similar study and found that when companies had a more mature program in place they saw better ROI.
Having your sales and marketing teams on the same page will also allow you to see more success. Studies have shown that when sales and marketing align, you will see 24% faster revenue growth in 3 years and have a 38% higher win rate on your sales.
Only 20% of companies state that their Account-Based Marketing program is fully established. So if you want to see the best results out of your strategy, make sure you give it enough time. Most companies take around 18 months to see the best results.
So what if your business isn’t generating leads? Maybe it’s time to rethink your approach. Perhaps getting more leads wasn’t the goal to begin with. Account-Based Marketing can help you achieve the goals you want. Great content and strategic outreach allows you to target your ideal customers and show them the value of your product in a way in which they are receptive to receive it. Want to know more? Let’s connect.